Pranda Michael Matt

I worked three jobs for ten years to put my husband through medical school. The night he was named Surgeon of the Year, he handed me divorce papers. His mistress stood beside him — wearing my dead mother's ring. He had already emptied our joint accounts. I walked out of that ballroom blind with tears, and a delivery truck ended my life on Fifth Avenue. Then I opened my eyes. It was three years earlier — the exact morning Sloane Whitmore walked back into our lives. This time, I wouldn't fight for him. This time, I'd wrap him in a bow and hand him to her myself. --- My hands were shaking as I stared at the calendar on the kitchen wall. **June 11th.** Three years ago. The day of Mercy General's charity gala — the night Eric would "accidentally" run into his college sweetheart, fresh off her divorce from a Paris hedge-fund millionaire who'd bled her dry. In my last life, I'd stood in this kitchen at 6 a.m., ironing Eric's tuxedo shirt before my shift at the diner. I'd worked the breakfast rush, taught piano lessons in the afternoon, then proofread medical journals until midnight — all so Dr. Eric Clinton could shine. And shine he did. Right into Sloane's bed within a month. For three years I'd played the blind, devoted wife while they laughed at me behind my back. While he siphoned my savings into "investments" that were really her condo. While his mother told everyone I'd "trapped" her brilliant son before he could do better. And when I finally confronted him, he'd looked at me with those cold gray eyes and said: *"Claire, be honest. You were never my equal. You were a stepping stone. Sloane is my destiny — you wouldn't understand a love like ours."* A love like ours. I'd died for that sentence. "Babe?" Eric's voice floated down the stairs, warm and lazy. "Did you press my shirt? Big night tonight." I looked up. There he was — thirty-one again, handsome, charming, the man I'd loved since I was nineteen. The man who would smile at me tonight while texting *her* under the table. In my last life, I'd melted at that voice. Now my stomach turned. "Of course," I said sweetly. "I want you to look perfect tonight." *Perfect for her.* Because here's what Eric didn't know. He didn't know that the brownstone we lived in was inherited from my mother — and still in my name alone. He didn't know that the $200,000 I'd scraped together for his future private practice sat in an account he couldn't touch without me. He didn't know that in my last life, I'd handed all of it over willingly, like a fool, signature by signature. This time, he'd get nothing. This time, he could have his destiny — broke. He came downstairs, kissed my forehead, and stole a piece of toast off my plate. "You're the best wife in the world, Claire. What would I do without you?" I smiled up at him. "Oh, Eric," I said softly. "I guess we're going to find out." He laughed, like it was a joke. It wasn't. Tonight, Sloane Whitmore would walk into that gala in a red dress, touch my husband's arm, and whisper, *"Eric? Oh my God — it's been forever."* And I would stand there, champagne in hand, and do the one thing I never did in my first life. I would smile — and let her take him. 🌶 Click to Read this Spicy Best Seller 👇🏻